“Exactly. I mean, DuBose knew how to be a little snob but he really didn’t want to be poor. So, he struggled with the idea of a literary career, which he considered appropriate for a gentleman of his highfalutin background, versus what he considered selling out and writing something more commercial. Dorothy was the perfect solution.”
“Because she arrived on the scene with deep pockets?”
“Yes. And she was already a commercial success as a playwright when they met. DuBose Heyward didn’t have the first clue about how to adapt Porgy the book to the stage. Dorothy did it.”
“You know, it’s so funny, you never even hear her name. I always thought DuBose was the creative genius.”
“Well, to give the devil his due, he was the one who had the very original point of view about the whole Gullah world that shaped the story of Porgy and Bess. I mean, DuBose took the accepted view at the time, which was that the African Americans were shiftless and lazy and sat around all day just waiting to please Massah, you know, Al Jolson in blackface, the whole minstrel thing?”
“I’m with you. Heck, Cate, it was almost that bad when we were growing up.”
“Not with everyone. I mean, look at Ella and Aunt Daisy.”
“What? You don’t remember because you were really little but I remember that Daddy was more upset about Ella’s complexion than he was with what went on between them.”
“Come on.”
“True.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. How stupid.”
“That’s right.”
“That old skunk! All right, well anyway, DuBose turned the stuffy old Charlestonians on their ears when he described the black world as highly desirable, even enviable. He was completely enthralled by their passion for living, for religion, for love . . .”
“I’ll bet that caused some talk around the old Yacht Club.”
“Don’t you know it? Well, from what I can gather, people from other places like Boston and New York thought he was avant-garde, but people here didn’t understand what he saw in Gullah life that was worth writing about. So, it’s safe to say that he was controversial.”
“You got a picture of him?”
“Yeah, a bunch. In fact, there’s one in the front room. Come on, I’ll show you and then let’s call it a night. I’ll help you take your stuff upstairs.”
We put our glasses in the sink and rinsed them.
“What’s this room?” Patti said.
“That bedroom? Oh, that’s where their help slept and supposedly that’s the desk he used to write Mamba’s Daughters.”
“Humph.”
“Yeah, that’s what I say, too. Come in here and look at this.”
I turned on the extra lights in the front room and turned out the lights behind us and pointed to a picture of DuBose with George and Ira Gershwin.
“That’s him,” I said.
“He looks like a total wimp,” Patti said.
“Well, there was talk . . .”
“That what? He was gay?”
“There was that rumor but I don’t think so. I think he was just a gold-digging, self-promoting, opportunistic, arrogant ass and also a total wimp.”
“Oh! That’s it? But not gay.”
“I don’t think so. But who knows?”
“Who cares?” Patti said.
“Not me.”
“But you have to wonder what she saw in him?”
“That’s easy. He had a name. And he belonged somewhere. She was as smart as a whip, an orphaned vagabond, and she wanted a life in the theater on the other side of the footlights.”
“Like you?”
“No, she was totally amazing. I’m just a sniveling novice. But you see, DuBose could give her all of that. But here’s the part I’ll never understand.”
“What?”
“She adored him. She absolutely adored him.”
“She must have. Aunt Daisy always said there was a lid for every pot. Gershwin died young, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, very. Thirty-eight. So did DuBose.”
“Really? How old?”
“Fifty-five. Massive heart attack.”
“And she never remarried?”
“Nope. She canonized DuBose instead. She spent the entire rest of her life protecting his name and making sure he got all the credit he was due.”
“Now that’s love.”
“That’s what I think, too. Come on, I’ll even let you use the bathroom first.”
All night long I kept waking up thinking I was hearing someone playing my piano. Of course that was ridiculous. And it wasn’t like they were playing a whole song. It was a few faint notes here and a few hushed chords there. I thought, boy, Cate, you’ve got some crazy imagination and I made a mental note to buy earplugs at the drugstore in the morning.
I couldn’t tell you when I finally fell asleep but I could definitely tell you when I woke up—it was when my cell phone rang at eight o’clock. It was Ella calling.
“Y’all want some breakfast? I’ve got my waffle iron heating up and there’s a pound of bacon sizzling away in my big cast-iron skillet.”
Waffles? Bacon?
“I haven’t even seen Patti yet but I’ll say heck yeah for both of us. Give us thirty minutes?”
“See you then!”
I threw back the covers and called out to Patti.
“Patti? Ella’s making waffles. And bacon.”
“I’m up!” she said. “Should we get dressed for downtown or are sweats okay?”
“Sweatpants are fine. Let’s walk on the beach after we eat and then we can do all the other things we’ve got to do.”
“Perfect. You’ve got sheet marks on your face.”
“Big shock.”
We pulled ourselves together in record time, hopped in the Subaru, and we were off. When we got there I emptied their mailbox and Patti picked up the newspapers. We went inside, using my key.
“Aunt Daisy gave you a key?”
“I thought it was a good idea for a whole lot of reasons.”
“It really is.”
Ella was in the kitchen watching the Today Show and turning bacon with a fork.
“Morning!” I said and gave her a hug.
“Sure smells good in here,” Patti said and hugged her, too.
“Nothing on this earth like bacon. And I have an apple pie in the oven for that nice nurse. Why don’t you girls make yourselves useful and set the table?”
“I’ve got the mail and Patti got the newspapers. No word from the hospital, huh?”
“Not a peep.”
“That’s good,” I said.
Happy birthday from our friends at Smuckers! Here’s Bessie Johnson as pretty as a picture. She’s one hundred and four, still likes to go bowling and she sings in the choir! Never misses a Sunday! Willard Scott chirped.
“Humph,” Ella said. “She looks like she’s past dead, if you ask me! Listen to that fool man up there flapping his jaw. She sings in the choir? I’ll bet they wish she wouldn’t!”
“Yeah, and she bowls, too,” I said. “That’s gotta be fun to watch! These place mats okay?”
Ella nodded and I put them on the table.
“Someday they’ll have you and Aunt Daisy on that show,” Patti said. “Do you want me to melt the butter and syrup together?”
“Hush your fool mouth and hand me a plate, and yeah, melt it quick in the microwave,” Ella said and shook her head, hooking her thumb in its direction. “Oh, Lord! It’s so nice to have my two girls here.”
In minutes we were seated around the table, drizzling hot buttery maple syrup over steaming waffles and snitching a slice of bacon with our fingers before the first waffle was cut. Patti poured coffee and I turned down the television.
“Let’s bless this food with a little prayer for our Daisy,” Ella said and we did.
Fully fortified by another hearty meal, Patti and I thought about taking a short walk on the beach. Ella adamantly insisted on cleaning her own kitchen. It didn�
�t matter that Patti was an accomplished chef who cleaned and disinfected a kitchen like a surgical theater preparing to operate on the pope. Ella nearly always cleaned her own kitchen and when anyone else tried to help she twitched.
“We’ll be back in thirty minutes then we’ll run home and change and go downtown to Aunt Daisy? How’s that?” I said to Ella.
“You girls go get a little exercise but don’t be gone too long though. I want to get to the hospital before the morning slips away.”
“Wait,” I said. “We can skip the beach? Right, Patti?”
“Ella? We can take you downtown right now, and then come back,” Patti said. “Would that be better?”
“No, I’m just, you know, a little uneasy. That’s all. Besides, I can drive myself in my own car!” she said and I could see her anxiety all over her face. She would drive herself to the hospital, stay all day, it would get dark, she’d be scared to drive herself home. “I just want to wipe down my counters and start the dishwasher. You girls go on now.”
“No way,” I said, feeling stupid and guilty about not rushing her to Aunt Daisy’s side. “You’re right. Let’s get you downtown. It would actually be better to walk later on when it’s warmer anyway.”
“Yeah,” Patti said. “It’s awfully foggy and damp and this morning my throat was a little scratchy. Probably better to wait.”
“You girls haven’t changed a bit,” Ella said, pouring liquid dishwasher soap into its little compartment. “Always in cahoots with each other.” She closed the door and turned it on.
“What kinda cahoots?” Patti said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what she means.”
“I’ll get my coat,” Ella said.
“Anyway, it’s a waste of gas to take two cars,” I said. “Russ will bring you home whenever you want him to.”
“Why? Where are you going?” Ella said.
“John is taking Patti and me out to dinner tonight.”
“Oh! Patti, wait ’til you lay eyes on this man. He’s a hunk.”
“A hunk, huh?” Patti said and laughed.
When we were in the car, moving down the highway that was indeed like a bowl of pea soup, I remembered to ask if Ella needed help with the bills and so on.
“Ella? Would you like me to spend some time going through the bills and see if anything’s due? Check on tenants?”
“Oh, no, honey! I’ve got that all under control. Don’t worry. But you’re sweet to ask. I’ll let you know if I need something.”
“Okay,” I said.
Well, that’s good. Maybe they were more organized than I thought.
When we arrived at the Medical University, Patti got out of the car, too.
“Know what?” she said. “I’m just gonna run up there really fast to see how she did last night and I’ll be right back.”
“I can park and come up with you if you want,” I said.
“Nah, you look like who did it and ran. I’ll be two seconds!”
“Oh thanks!”
“Truth hurts!” she said and stuck her tongue out at me.
I lowered my window and called out, “How old are you?”
She turned to me laughing and slapped her backside, which was sister-code language inviting me to kiss it. I gave her the one-finger salute and hoped that Ella had not seen us. We were still not too old to catch the devil from her.
I looked in the rearview mirror and then the one on the visor. She was right. I looked like I hadn’t slept in days. Gosh, what a whirlwind it had been since I arrived here. First, a car wreck that throws a new man into my life, next I find out I’m going to be a grandmother, then John wants me to write a play, and I turn around to put Aunt Daisy in the hospital! Surely things would settle down now. What else could happen?
I listened to Walter Edgar’s Journal on National Public Radio while I waited. I swear, if that man could bottle his voice he could make zillions but I suspected that was why he had his own radio program for so many years. He was so nice to listen to.
Soon Patti was back in the car.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s awake. They took out the breathing tube and now she’s got this thing on her finger, like a clamp. It measures her oxygen in her blood. She’s very hoarse and oh, did I mention that she’s pissed?”
“I’ll bet she is.”
“She wants ice cream and popsicles, and two vodka martinis, vodka because they can’t smell it on her breath and we’re to sneak it in to her in a thermos. And oh, if she doesn’t get what she wants, she’s getting out of that bed and walking home if she has to.”
“God, she must be feeling better. And what else?”
“The doctor wasn’t around but the nurse, that nice one from yesterday? She said Aunt Daisy is in for at least one more night. Her fever’s down so she’s responding to the antibiotic. They just want to be sure she’s entirely out of the woods.”
“Good. Was she happy to see you?”
“She wanted to know if I was here to claim my inheritance.”
“Only Aunt Daisy would ask such an outrageous thing.”
“And she wanted to know where the hell you were. Her words. I told her I just ran up to make sure she had a pulse.”
“Nice one.”
“She said to tell you that if you expect to inherit a dime she’d like to see you at her bedside. I told her you’d be back by lunch.”
“Then we’ll be back by lunch.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Setting: Show slides of the theater in Boston, then of the theater district in New York.
Director’s Note: Show picture of the Gershwins with DuBose at a piano and then a head shot of George.
Act III
Scene 3
Dorothy: When Porgy and Bess opened in Boston, we knew from the enthusiasm of the audience on opening night that we had a hit on our hands. Gershwin of course went out to take a bow and got a standing ovation. DuBose was there, too, standing behind him and you can hardly see him in the pictures. In any case, Boston loved it! But when the critics got hold of it they started to chew. Was it an opera? Not exactly. An operetta? Not technically. Was it a musical? Not really. The critics worked themselves into a snit trying to decide whether it was a white show or a black show and all sorts of really stupid remarks were made. Rouben Mamoulian, who was our director, summed up the bickering pretty nicely. He said, “You give someone something delicious to eat and they complain because they have no name for it.” Isn’t that the truth?
Anyway, the Boston run gave us confidence for opening in New York and there was one thing everyone agreed on—it was too long. So George began hacking away at it and in my opinion I think he destroyed a lot of its integrity. The New York run was only 124 performances. Now that’s great for an opera but not great for a musical. Needless to say, George and DuBose lost their shirts. Another problem was the segregation laws. Oh, what a mess that was, especially here in Charleston! It couldn’t be staged here until what? 1970?
Anyway, poor old George was never to know what a controversial piece of theater he created with us. He was performing in Los Angeles, working on The Goldwyn Follies, and began getting these terrible blinding headaches. He said he could smell burning rubber all the time. He thought the headaches were a result of getting hit in the head with a golf ball. He complained of being extremely sensitive to light. People thought he was just being dramatic. But then he began to have seizures. Finally, during a performance, he collapsed.
Not to get too involved in medical terminology, which I can barely pronounce, the kind of seizures he had were called automatisms, which made him do very bizarre things. During one of these seizures, he opened the door of a moving car and tried to pull the chauffeur out. He said he had no idea why he would do such a thing. Another time someone gave him a box of chocolates and he smashed them up into a pile of goop and smeared them all over his body.
Doctors finally decided he had a brain tumor and they operated on him at
Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. After the operation his temperature went up to almost 107 degrees and his pulse beats were almost 180 a minute. Poor George never regained consciousness and he died. He was only thirty-eight years old.
The world was robbed of his incredible genius and DuBose and I were shocked and inconsolable.
Fade to Darkness
Chapter Twenty-six
Aunt Daisy
“I forgot my purse,” Patti said.
“Where? At the hospital?”
“No, at Aunt Daisy’s house.”
“So, we’ll stop and get it. I know the alarm code.”
“Okay, thanks. I hate when I forget things. Don’t you hate getting old?”
“No, I love getting old. In fact, I don’t know which part of it I love the most. Maybe the sagging jowly thing. How about you?”
“I was thinking memory loss but on second thought I’m gonna go with memory loss.”
“Nice.”
We got back to Folly Beach and were approaching Aunt Daisy’s house just as the mail truck was pulling away.
“I’ll go get it,” Patti said.
I pulled into the driveway and parked. I got out and stretched while Patti unloaded the mailbox.
“Boy, they sure do get a load of junk! There must be fifty catalogs here.”
“Here, give me a pile of that. Ella said that ever since Aunt Daisy broke her foot she’s been ordering stuff like a crazy woman. I think they breed.”
“Oh, I see. Catalogs have a sex life now?”
“Yeah, they get it on like rabbits.”
“You’re truly demented.”
We went up the stairs, I unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and we dumped all the catalogs on the kitchen counter. An envelope fell out with my brother-in-law Mark’s office address on it.
“Hey, Patti? Do you know why Mark would be writing to Aunt Daisy?”
“Nope.” I handed her the envelope and she looked at it for a minute. “Let’s open it.”
“Are you crazy?” I said. “Aunt Daisy would have us arrested, after she kicked our butts the whole way to Iowa, that is.”
“Yeah, she’d keep the cast on for that one. But what is Mark doing that he’s not telling me about?”
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